Renaissance, Age of Discovery & Scientific Revolution

These question-and-answer flashcards review major people, ideas, inventions and events from the Renaissance through the Scientific Revolution, helping students master key concepts for exam preparation.

When did the European Renaissance occur?

Roughly from the 14th to the 16th century.

What was the Renaissance?

A European cultural, artistic, political and economic rebirth that bridged the Middle Ages and modern civilization.

Which intellectual movement placed humans at the center of the universe and celebrated classical learning?

Humanism.

What 1450 invention rapidly spread Renaissance ideas throughout Europe?

Johannes Gutenberg’s movable-type printing press.

Who is called the “Father of Humanism”?

Francesco Petrarch.

Which polymath painted the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper and epitomized the term “Renaissance man”?

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519).

Which artist painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling and sculpted David?

Michelangelo (1475–1564).

Which Northern European humanist produced a Greek New Testament that influenced the Reformation?

Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536).

What is Dante Alighieri’s most famous literary work?

The Divine Comedy.

Who proclaimed “I think; therefore I am” and is regarded as the father of modern philosophy?

René Descartes (1596–1650).

Which Italian painter’s realistic frescoes in Padua influenced later artists?

Giotto di Bondone (1266–1337).

Who published On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres in 1543?

Nicolaus Copernicus.

What two key conclusions did Copernicus make about the universe?

It is heliocentric (sun-centered) and Earth is just one planet orbiting the sun.

Why did many 16th-century scholars and the Church reject Copernicus?

His heliocentric theory contradicted Ptolemy and Church doctrine of an Earth-centered cosmos.

Which scientist observed Jupiter’s moons and was tried by the Inquisition in 1633?

Galileo Galilei.

What was the outcome of Galileo’s 1633 trial?

He was forced to recant, placed under house arrest and banned from publishing.

In what year did the Catholic Church officially pardon Galileo?

1992.

What era of ocean voyages during the Renaissance broadened European geographic knowledge?

The Age of Discovery.

Which German monk’s 95 Theses (1517) sparked the Protestant Reformation?

Martin Luther.

What 1545 council created the Roman Inquisition, curbing Renaissance creativity?

The Council of Trent.

Which intellectual era followed the Renaissance in the early 17th century?

The Age of Enlightenment.

Define the Scientific Revolution.

The emergence of modern science (16th–18th centuries) that transformed views of nature through advances in math, physics, astronomy, biology and chemistry.

Name one factor that shifted science away from medieval ideas.

Collaboration among scholars, new experimental methods, access to classical texts, or institutional support like the Royal Society.

What systematic approach to inquiry became central during the Scientific Revolution?

The Scientific Method.

Which English philosopher popularized inductive reasoning and empiricism?

Francis Bacon (1561–1626).

List the basic steps of the scientific method.

State the problem, collect information, form a hypothesis, test the hypothesis, record & analyze data, state a conclusion, repeat.

Which astronomer used Tycho Brahe’s data to show planets move in elliptical orbits?

Johannes Kepler (1571–1630).

What three laws did Isaac Newton formulate?

1) Inertia (body at rest stays at rest), 2) F = ma (acceleration from force), 3) Action-reaction (equal and opposite reactions).

What universal force did Newton’s Principia describe?

Gravitation (law of universal gravitation).

Who published the first accurate, detailed human anatomy text in 1543?

Andreas Vesalius.

Which English physician described systemic circulation of blood?

William Harvey (1578–1657).

Which French surgeon improved battlefield medicine and developed new wound treatments?

Ambroise Paré (1510–1590).

Who is considered the founder of clinical teaching and the modern academic hospital?

Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738).

Which Venetian physician introduced quantitative measurement (e.g., thermometer) to medicine?

Santorio Santorio (1561–1636).

Who is called the father of modern dentistry?

Pierre Fauchard (1678–1761).

Who is known as the father of genetics for his pea-plant experiments?

Gregor Mendel (1822–1884).

Who coined the term “cell” in 1665?

Robert Hooke.

Which 17th-century chemist distinguished elements from compounds and studied gas pressure?

Robert Boyle.

Who demonstrated oxygen’s role in combustion?

Antoine Lavoisier (1743–1794).

Which British scientist discovered hydrogen?

Henry Cavendish (1731–1810).

Who devised the modern biological classification system?

Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778).

Whose theory of natural selection explained evolution?

Charles Darwin (1809–1882).

Who first observed single-celled organisms and is called the father of microbiology?

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723).

Who developed the first successful vaccine against smallpox?

Edward Jenner (1749–1823).

Which French scientist created pasteurization and advanced germ theory?

Louis Pasteur (1822–1895).

Which surgeon pioneered antiseptic surgery with carbolic acid?

Joseph Lister (1827–1912).

Who discovered the cell nucleus and described Brownian motion?

Robert Brown (1773–1858).

Which scientist discovered radium and polonium and coined the term radioactivity?

Marie Curie (1867–1934).

Who is often regarded as the first computer programmer?

Ada Lovelace (1815–1852).

Which inventor championed alternating-current electricity and built the Tesla coil?

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943).

Who developed special and general relativity and the equation E = mc²?

Albert Einstein (1879–1955).

Which chemist’s X-ray crystallography helped reveal DNA’s structure?

Rosalind Franklin (1920–1958).

What 15th-century illustrated volumes documented theoretical machines?

“Machine books” or the Theatrum Machinarum.

Who authored Bellifortis, a treatise on medieval war machines?

Konrad Kyeser.

Which French engineer published "The Various and Ingenious Machines" in 1588?

Agostino Ramelli.

The transition from theoretical machines to practical devices during the Renaissance laid groundwork for which later era?

The Industrial Revolution.

Which astronomer proposed a geo-heliocentric system keeping Earth fixed at the center?

Tycho Brahe (1546–1601).

What key discovery did Kepler make about planetary orbits?

They are elliptical, not perfect circles.

Define empiricism.

The theory that knowledge comes primarily from sensory experience and experimentation.

Which institution founded in 1660 validated and published scientific work in England?

The Royal Society (of London).

Whose integrative approach across geography, biology and geology is called Humboldtian science?

Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859).

Which French physiologist promoted blind experiments for objective results?

Claude Bernard (1813–1878).

What four moons did Galileo discover, supporting heliocentrism?

The Galilean moons of Jupiter: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

What Renaissance innovation allowed domestic mechanical timepieces?

Early mechanical table/turret clocks.

Name two navigators whose voyages typified the Age of Discovery.

Examples: Ferdinand Magellan, Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, Vasco Núñez de Balboa, etc.

What did Bacon argue about truth in scientific inquiry?

Truth is not known at the start but discovered after systematic investigation.

List Kepler’s three laws of planetary motion in brief.

1) Elliptical orbits, 2) Equal areas in equal times, 3) Period squared ∝ semi-major axis cubed.

Which 16th-century work signaled the shift from animal to human dissections in anatomy?

Vesalius’s On the Structure of the Human Body (1543).

What is the key difference between medieval and scientific-method approaches to knowledge?

Reliance on empirical testing and observation rather than on authority or tradition.